We’re dialing back some previous buffs to Assault Rifles to help close the gap in effectiveness between ARs and SMGs, allowing SMGs to be more effective at firing on the move.

Slight reduction to ADS move speed for all Assault Rifles.

Slight reduction to ADS-in transition speed for all Assault Rifles.

ICR-7

Reduced headshot damage.

Slight reduction to reload speed.

VAPR-XKG

Reduced close-range headshot damage.

Damage now falls off sooner.

High Caliber: Reduced headshot multiplier, eliminating the possibility of a 3-hit kill.

Submachine Guns

Mobility is the primary strength of SMGs, speeding across the map to engage or disengage quickly. Some of the close-range SMGs were performing quite well, while others struggled to compete with the rest of the category. This week’s balancing pass levels the playing field between SMGs.

MX9

Extended all damage ranges.

High Caliber: Reduced headshot multiplier, eliminating the possibility of a 4-hit kill.

Cordite

Extended all damage ranges.

Belt-Feed Operator Mod: Increased overheat rate.

GKS

Quad Shot Operator Mod: Slight time increase in between bursts.

Saug 9mm

Dual Wield Operator Mod: Reduced hip-fire accuracy.

Tactical Rifles

We’ve buffed the ABR to be more competitive with the other Tactical Rifles, while stepping down its Operator Mod to keep it from becoming a crutch Attachment. The Swordfish received some Attachment adjustments, as well.

ABR 223

Extended maximum damage range.

Repeater Operator Mod: Now takes longer to accelerate fire rate.

Stock: Slight reduction in movement speed bonus.

Laser Sight & Laser Sight II: Improved hip-fire accuracy.

Swordfish

High Caliber: Reduced headshot multiplier, eliminating the possibility of a 3-hit kill.

Penta Burst Operator Mod: Reduced extra granted clip-size.

Sniper Rifles

The other Sniper Rifles needed help to fight King Paladin. We’re giving these rifles reduced idle sway and upping their damage to help finish off wounded targets more consistently.

Removed turn sway when aiming down sights on all Sniper Rifles to better ensure the weapon reticle stays centered when turning.

Paladin HB50

High Caliber II: Hitting the lower torso on a full Tak-5-boosted enemy will no longer be a 1-hit kill.

FMJ II: Improved damage against Scorestreaks.

Stabilizer II: Player can now hold breath sooner after the previous hold breath.

Outlaw

Improved base damage from 110 to 130.

Reduced idle sway.

Increased base movement speed.

Stock: Slight increase in ADS movement speed bonus.

SDM

Increased clip size from 10 to 12.

Reduced idle sway.

Koshka

Improved Damage from 120 to 140.

Stock: Slight increase in ADS movement speed bonus.

Light Machine Guns

Some in the community have discovered that the Titan and VKM 750 are extremely effective weapons! We’re toning them down before everyone jumps on the bandwagon. While they’ll still be scary to face off against, players will now have a more reasonable chance to defend themselves against these LMGs.

Titan

Reduced headshot damage.

Reduced hip-fire accuracy.

Stock: Reduced ADS movement speed bonus.

VKM 750

Reduced movement speed while firing.

Reduced damage slightly.

Fat Barrel Operator Mod: Reduced bullet tracer size.

Hades

Cross Bar Operator Mod: Reduced movement speed and accuracy.

Steady Grip: Improved recoil mitigation.

Pistols

Slight reduction to ADS-in transition speed for all Pistols.

RK 7 Garrison

Slight increase to the time between bursts.

Slight reduction to reload speed.

Shotguns

This weapon class is close to where we want it, with only a couple of specific Attachments performing better than intended. Shotguns in Black Ops 4 play a different role than in past Call of Duty titles, and those who have practiced cat-and-mouse gameplay can be highly effective with them.

Strobe Light Operator Mod: Addressed an issue with the Strobe Light where it would remain on after death.

Live update coming soon to reduce the range at which the Strobe Light interferes with enemy aim.

Attachments (All Weapons)

Grip II

Reduced ADS flinch mitigation.

Suppressor

Reduced damage falloff ranges.

Holographic Sight Optic

Reduced ADS recoil.

Dual Zoom Optic

Reduced ADS recoil.

Recon Optic

Reduced ADS recoil.

ELO Optic

Slightly increased ADS recoil.

Specialists

Ajax

We’re providing more strategic options to counteract Ballistic Shield, and to help ensure the Shield isn’t activated too often in the same game.

Explosives now apply partial damage to the front of a deployed Ballistic Shield user.

Ballistic Shield now takes longer to earn.

Nomad

We want to encourage Nomad to work more closely with his K9-Unit to maximize effectiveness.

Reduced K9-Unit health by 10%.

Crash

While we’re happy that our Support Specialist is so popular, he was a bit too effective as a Scorestreak farmer.

Reduced “Teammate Used Pack” score event from +50 to +25.

Firebreak

Purifier has been restored to its former glory.

Increased Purifier flame damage to be a guaranteed eventual kill against a player who doesn’t have Tactical Mask equipped.

Recon

Intelligence wins wars, and Recon is living proof. We have intelligence that Recon’s intelligence is too good, so we’re re-classifying some of his sources.

Reduced Sensor Dart duration.

Resolved an issue where voiceover would incorrectly state that the player’s Sensor Dart was destroyed.

Torque

Many in the community have embraced Torque with inventive playstyles, though he’s still struggling on a broader scale. We bolstered the effectiveness of his Barricade to ensure he stays relevant in team compositions.

Increased earn rate for Barricade.

Increased hit points for Barricade.

Addressed an issue that prevented TAACOM from telling the player that their Barricade was taking damage.

Prophet

Prophet’s Tempest needed an upgrade to stand a chance of competing with the rest of the Specialists.

Greatly increased Tempest projectile speed.

Slightly increased Tempest chain distance.

Resolved an issue where being hit by an explosive charge would disable the Tempest charge, preventing further arcing.

Spawns

Team Deathmatch

Tuned spawn logic around how enemies impact where the game chooses to respawn the player.

Tuned spawn logic tuning around how the active Hardpoint affects nearby spawns. This should provide more predictable spawns when battling over an active Hardpoint.

Additional global spawn adjustments to improve the ability for a player to anchor a location for their team’s respawns relative to an active Hardpoint.

Spawn adjustments made for Frequency and Seaside.

Free For All

Spawn adjustments made for Slums, Summit, Militia, and Firing Range.

Control

Spawn adjustments made for Slums, Summit, Militia, and Firing Range.

Gear

Stim Shot

Increased time to fully heal the player.

Armor

Resolved an issue where Armor protected from more damage than intended when hitting areas of the body that have damage multipliers, such as the head or upper chest. This primarily affects weapons with chest modifiers, such as Sniper Rifles or weapons with High Caliber II.

Acoustic Sensor

Reduced the range at which sprinting enemies are detected.

Perks

Dead Silence

Reduced player movement volume and distance that players equipped with Dead Silence can be heard by enemies. The intention for Dead Silence is not to be completely silent, but also not to allow enemies to hear your movement from longer distances.

Engineer

Extraction helicopter in Heist will no longer be highlighted by the Engineer Perk.

Scorestreaks

Mantis

Resolved an issue where the Mantis could be destroyed by touching the Out-Of-Bounds area of a map.

Resolved an issue where the “Hard Stop” Challenge could reset before reaching 300.

Resolved an issue where the “Marksman Mastery” Challenge would not give 10,000 XP upon completion.

Resolved an issue where destroying friendly Scorestreaks would award score.

Players can no longer crouch or go prone while performing a Gesture.

Game Modes

Increased XP earn rate in Heist.

Increased amount of XP earned per kill in Free For All.

Resolved an issue where Hardcore wins were not counted toward Challenges.

Resolved an issue in Free For All where Recon players could receive Vision Pulse assist score.

Silent Plant option in Custom Games should now make planting and defusing bombs completely silent.

Maps

Icebreaker

Adjusted cover pieces to discourage players from spawn-camping.

Added cover to the lower respawn side.

Slums

Adjusted cover pieces to discourage players from spawn-camping.

Miscellaneous

Several map fixes to address exploits that allowed players to leave the intended play space.

Theater

Theater files recorded before this update will no longer be viewable due to significant architectural changes to the system. As noted in our previous major update, we will make every effort to keep instances of incompatibility to a minimum.

Added a watermark in the HUD that only displays when in Theater mode.

Why this change? We often see players posting videos recorded from Theater as a demonstration of “poor hit detection” or other issues that appear to be incorrect. While Theater represents what happened in a match in a general sense, it does not reflect with 100% accuracy all of the details as they were experienced live. Live recorded gameplay footage is the more accurate method for reporting behavior in the game that is not performing as expected. With this change, we can better identify Theater clips when reviewing community videos and therefore filter them out for the more accurate live recorded clips.

Audio

Resolved issues that caused footsteps to sound muffled when they shouldn’t be.

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Playlists

100-Player Solos added to Featured playlist.

Maximum player count set to 88 for Duos and Quads.

Audio

Tweaked settings to ensure friendly teammates’ footsteps are now quieter than enemy footsteps.

Adjusted footsteps for all Armor types in first-person and third-person to give better directionality and distance information.

Resolved an issue that occasionally caused footsteps to be silent.

Resolved issues that caused footsteps to become muffled when they shouldn’t be.

Armor

Armor now allows more damage to pass through to areas of the body that have damage multipliers, such as the head or upper chest. For example, headshots now do more damage against Level 3 Armor.

To tag an item for your teammate, approach the Item and select the bottom center command on your Command Wheel. This will display the Item in text on your team’s HUD and highlight the item in the world for your team.

Increased the brightness of Items when a teammate tags them as “Item Found” via the Command Wheel.

Increased duration that Items tagged using “Item Found” are displayed in the world to your team.

Calling Cards and Challenges

Resolved an issue where completing Dark Ops Challenges would not unlock their associated Calling Card.

Resolved an issue where certain Challenges rewarded the same Calling Card.

UI

Resolved an issue where the Altimeter could disappear during Infiltration.

Resolved an issue where incorrect Inventory items could be shown while spectating another player.

Miscellaneous

Resolved an issue that allowed players to shoot through certain rocks.

Improved visual quality of the grass.

Resolved an issue where the After Action Report would show double damage when in Squads.